


Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)

by gayfranzkafka



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfranzkafka/pseuds/gayfranzkafka
Summary: The 4077 has just watched Singin' In The Rain, and Margaret, B.J., and Hawkeye get drunk and re-create scenes from the iconic movie, causing trouble around camp. But when B.J. and Hawkeye finally end up alone, things get more serious, and love might just be in the air.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 24
Kudos: 85





	Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)

B.J. and Hawkeye are sitting in Colonel Potter’s office, the morning after a night of hard drinking. “So tell me,” Colonel Potter says, looking un-amused, “just how exactly one of my best surgeons managed to _break his arm_ last night.”

“Well—“ Hawkeye says.

“You see—“ B.J. starts at the same time.

They pause, looking at each other. “Alright, you go,” B.J. says.

“No, really, you go,” Hawkeye replies, adding, “It’s so much better when you tell it,” in a tone that suggests they’re about to recount the story of their wedding day and not how a night of drinking lead to grievous bodily injury.

“Well,” B.J. says, “it all started with the rain.”

***

The night before, B.J., Hawkeye, and Margaret get out of surgery at 10 pm, after working for eleven hours straight. As they’re stripping off their surgical coverings and making their way out of the tent, B.J. says, “Join us for a nightcap in the officer’s club, Margaret?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies, pausing as she pushes the door open and realizes it’s pouring outside. “God, on a night like this, it might be best just to hole up in my tent!”

She starts to do just that and run for the cover of her tent, but B.J. and Hawkeye come up on either side of her, looping their arms through hers as if they’re her escorts. “Come on, Margaret,” Hawkeye says. “Don’t let a little rain ruin your night. Did you learn nothing from that movie last weekend? The rain is a marvelous thing if you’re in the right mood!”

 _Singin’ In the Rain_ had come out last year, and the camp had miraculously gotten a copy of it earlier this week. Now, B.J. and Hawkeye both begin to sing the titular song obnoxiously loudly, dancing around in the puddles with Margaret still sandwiched between them. She protests a little bit, but ends up relenting, letting them dance her right in through the door of the officer’s club. Once they’re inside, B.J., “Come on, Margaret, stay and have a drink. Don Lockwood didn’t let the rain get him down. Why should we?”

“Oh, fine,” she says. “After a week full of so many casualties, I really could use one.” The three of them arrange themselves at the bar counter, Margaret sitting in the middle stool. Igor slides drinks over to them, and the three of them chatter idly for a while, downing a few drinks each in quick succession, before talk returns to _Singin’ in the Rain_. Margaret sighs and says, “Wasn’t Debbie Reynolds was just magnificent in that movie? Her in that purple dress up on the ladder, when Gene Kelly’s singing to her. Oh, I could just die.”

“I liked the part where she jumped out of the cake,” Hawkeye says.

“Of course you did,” Margaret says. “You’re just as lecherous as Don Lockwood in the beginning of that movie.”

“So you admit I have a leading man quality about me?” Hawkeye says, leaning in to her flirtatiously.

“No,” Margaret says, pushing him away. “I misspoke. You’ve really got much more of a Cosmo Brown quality, if anything. I have an easier time visualizing you throwing yourself through a wall for a laugh than getting together with Debbie Reynolds.”

“Does that mean _I_ can be Don?” B.J. says, leaning in from the other side.

“If it means depriving Hawkeye of the right then, yes, you can be Don,” Margaret says.

“Does that mean I get a kiss?” B.J. jokes.

Margaret has drunk enough by this point in the evening that she actually leans over and kisses B.J. on the cheek, just because she knows it’ll take him by surprise. In response, B.J. does a perfect imitation of Cosmo’s tumble over the couch after Kathy kisses him post-“Good Morning.” He makes an exaggerated half-bashful, half-shocked expression, then topples purposefully off his stool. Hawkeye and Margaret both pivot on their seats a bit to look down at him, Hawkeye cracking up, Margaret looking more concerned. After a few seconds pass, B.J. can’t hold a straight face any longer, and he starts to laugh too, picking himself off the ground.

Margaret gives him a disgusted face as he sits back down and says, “See? This is what I mean. _None_ of you are the Don-Lockwood type. It’s a whole camp full of Cosmos.”

“Even Don had a wicked streak,” B.J. says.

“We’ve been telling folks back home we got shipped off for prestigious positions in surgery, but that’s really just a side-gig while me and B.J. work on our vaudeville act,” Hawkeye says.

“We’re great at that vaudeville act Don and Cosmo do, only problem is we don’t play violin,” B.J. adds.

“But we do a great imitation of violin players,” Hawkeye says, getting up off his stool. “Come on, B.J., would you like to show her?”

B.J. laughs. “I’m not sure.”

“Come on, get up, get up, don’t be shy!” Hawkeye says, pulling at B.J.’s arm and almost causing him to topple off his stool again. B.J. regains his balance, then stands up. “Okay, so I’ve got my violin,” Hawkeye says, miming playing a violin. Margaret swivels around on her stool to watch. Some of the rest of the crowd in the officer’s tent looks up, but most ignore them, as they’re used to the shenanigans. At this point, Charles comes into the tent, but he’s clutching some book and apparently so intent on arguing with Klinger about it that he pays them no mind. As Charles and Klinger get a table and some drinks, Hawkeye tells B.J., “Okay, so, then, you need your violin.” He waits patiently until B.J. also begins to mime playing a violin, grinning at Hawkeye as he does. “Right, so, we’ve got that down,” Hawkeye says. “Now, how does the song go, Margaret?”

“What?” she says.

“You know, ‘Fit as Fiddle.’” Hawkeye starts to hum part of the tune, managing to get the very first part of the lyrics right, then forgetting all the rest. “ _Fit as a fiddle and ready for love / I could jump over the moon up above / Fit as a fiddle and ready for love / something something something, something something…_ ”

Father Mulcahy looks up from where he’s been playing something really quite nice on the piano and begins to plunk out this tune instead. At this point, Margaret joins in, saying, “It’s, ‘ _Haven't a worry, I haven't a care, Feel like a feather that's floating on air, Fit as a fiddle and ready for love._ ’”

“Right, right!” Hawkeye says. “Come on, keep going!”

As Mulcahy continues to play, with Margaret singing along, Hawkeye and B.J. begin to do a rather uncoordinated and poor imitation of Don and Cosmo’s vaudeville act that accompanies the song in the movie. Hawkeye and B.J. both nearly knock over several people’s drinks in the process. When they get to the part of the song where Cosmo dances right behind Don so that they can play one another’s violins, B.J. comes up behind Hawk and puts his arms around him. They’re both so drunk that B.J. almost elbows Hawkeye in the eye on accident, but then they fall into step. Without actual violins, though, it just sort of looks like they’re confused about how to ballroom dance, are doing it the wrong way round.

More people are looking, now, and B.J. and Hawkeye are both laughing, but underneath it, Hawkeye thrills a little just at having B.J. this close to him, at having his arms around him, his cheek up against his own. He knows it’s all a joke, but he can’t help but take a little guilty, indulgent happiness from the warmth of the other man dancing so close behind him. Unknown to Hawkeye, B.J. feels the same way, grateful for the spectacle they’re making of themselves. Somehow, the fact of making a whole production out of it, of practically begging everyone else to look, makes it feel safer. _See?_ They seem to be saying. _This can’t possibly mean anything more to either of us. It’s just another bit of comedy for the whole camp to see._

Margaret, who at this point is laughing more than she’s singing, runs over to the door, grabbing an umbrella that someone’s left there. She then uses said umbrella like the cane at the end of the number in the movie, yanking B.J. and Hawkeye “offstage” with it. Hawkeye and B.J. both almost collapse onto her, and everyone else in the tent goes back to their own drinks as the trio snickers to themselves.

“Now that we’ve done our little performance,” Hawkeye says to Margaret, “will _you_ do us the honor of jumping out of a cake and singing about how ‘ _all you do the whole night through is dream of me_ ’?”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in that ridiculous pink outfit of hers from that number,” Margaret says. “And anyway, I don’t see any cakes around here.”

“Maybe Klinger will do it,” Hawkeye says as they all make their way back to their stools. “I’m sure we can rustle up a person-sized-cake somewhere or other.” B.J. and Margaret sit back down, but Hawkeye pauses at the table where Klinger and Charles are still arguing.

As Hawkeye approaches the table, though, Klinger looks up and goes, “Oh, no, captain, I have to agree with Margaret on this one. That little pink number is much too gauche for me.”

“Please, Pierce, you’re distracting us from a rather pressing matter,” Charles says, gesturing vaguely with the book he’s holding.

“And just _what_ might that most pressing matter be?” Hawkeye says.

“Well, I have been _trying_ to elucidate the value of poetry to Max here for about the last two hours.”

“And I’ve been telling him,” Klinger says, “if it ain’t dirty, I just don’t see the appeal.”

“Keats moves the _spirit_ , Max, which you’d know if only you’d let me read more than two lines at a time,” Charles says.

“Why don’t you read us some now?” Hawkeye says to Charles.

“I don’t—“ Charles begins, then looks up at Hawkeye, seeming to just now register what he said. “Are you being _serious_? A poet like Keats would be wasted on you in your drunken state.”

Over Charles’s shoulder, Hawkeye can see B.J. giving him a questioning glance. Hawkeye says to Charles, “No, please. Your _enunciation_ alone”—and here he gives B.J. a significant look—“is enough to make it enjoyable, let alone given the fine content of a Keats poem!”

B.J. seems to pick up exactly what Hawkeye’s implying here. “Well, fine,” Charles says. “If you really insist.” As he begins to read, B.J. begins to make faces at Hawkeye from behind Charles’s back. Hawkeye tries to keep a more serious expression on his own face, but he can’t help but crack a smile, just for a second.

That, combined with a snicker from Margaret, gets Charles to whip his head around, at which point B.J. gives him an angelic smile. “Please, keep reading,” B.J. says. “I’m enthralled.”

Charles frowns, but continues. However, it’s not long before Margaret snickers again. This time, B.J. can’t change his expression fast enough, and Charles catches him looking absolutely ridiculous. “Careful, Hunnicutt,” he sneers. “or your face will get stuck like that.”

“You know, Charles,” Hawkeye says. “That poem was moving, really, but there’s another one I like even more.”

“Yes,” B.J. says getting up and going over to the table to put his hand on Charles’ shoulder, before Charles shrugs it off. “I believe it starts, ‘Moses supposes his toes-es are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously.’”

“Oh, not more of this _Singing in the Rain_ drivel,” Charles says. “Didn’t you get this out of your system with that awful dance number you performed just minutes ago?”

At this point, B.J. and Hawkeye ignore the question, instead continuing to sing “Moses Supposes.” However, they quickly find they can’t quite remember the lyrics, and resort to sort of muttering different variations of, “a Mose is a rose is a toes is a rose is…” and so forth. Charles, clearly annoyed, turns away from them as they break into their best imitation of tap-dancing, which is a ridiculous, uncoordinated scuffling across the floor. As he turns away, though, B.J. goes over and sits in his lap, as Cosmo does to the poor, beleaguered Bobby Watson in the film, directing him to look at Hawkeye, who at this point makes his tap-dancing even more over the top, throwing in some jazz hands for good measure.

Charles, of course, quickly shoves B.J. off of his lap, but by this point, both Klinger and Margaret have caught on. Klinger runs over with a table cloth and a lamp, and Margaret gets up from her stool and actually upends some poor soul, so she can bring their chair over. B.J. and Hawkeye, still singing, now with the accompaniment of Klinger and Margaret, proceed to absolutely bury Charles underneath various odds and ends. Finally, they finish their number with a flourish, to the cheers of some of the other onlookers at the bar.

“Sorry, captain,” Klinger says to a still-buried Charles. “Your poetry just doesn’t move me quite like their song and dance just did.”

At this point, Charles kicks up such a fuss that Igor half-heartedly ejects Margaret, B.J., and Hawkeye from the bar. The three of them stumble, laughing, out into the rain again. This time, however, as she’s had more than a few drinks, Margaret doesn’t shriek and run for cover. Instead, _she’s_ the one to break out in another round of the titular, “Singing in the Rain,” throwing her hands wide and twirling as she looks up at the sky.

B.J. half-heartedly tries to shush her, whisper-laughing, “Margaret, you’ll wake the whole camp!”

She refuses to listen, though, and in fact begins to kick puddles of water at him while still singing. Hawkeye says, “Come on, Beej. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” He puts one of his arms through Margaret’s, and they begin to twirl each other in circles, all the while singing and kicking water at B.J.

B.J. grins and rushes at them, saying, “Well, if you’re going to play dirty!” Margaret and Hawkeye break apart, each shrieking a little, at which point B.J. picks Margaret up off the ground and throws her over his shoulder. “Kind of hard to kick water at me from up there, huh?” he says, grinning at Hawk.

“You idiot!” she says, but in such an affectionate tone that B.J. can tell she doesn’t really mind. “Put me down!”

“Oh, no,” B.J. says. “And leave myself open to the full brunt of your wrath? I’ll do no such thing.”

“Fine,” she says. “Then you can carry me to my tent so my shoes don’t get wet.” Grinning, she points at it, as if directing B.J. “It’s better than the Swamp. That way, Charles won’t come in and ruin our fun.”

“We must do as the gentleman commands, B.J.,” Hawkeye says, bowing and gesturing at Margaret’s tent. B.J. grins, and the three of them make their way into her tent, where B.J. finally puts Margaret down.

Hawkeye can tell the week has really been getting to all of them, then, and that the stress, the drinking, and the late hour must be making them all a bit loopy, because Margaret says, “I’m ready to stage another number. Get me a ladder and a purple dress. I’m ready for the silver screen!”

“Soaking wet with your makeup running? No, you’re not. Let your stylists help you,” B.J. says.

Hawkeye, immediately catching on, says delightedly, “Oh, yes! _Please_ let us choose your costuming for you, Margaret. I have an eye for this sort of thing.”

“I don’t for one minute believe that,” she tells him.

“Please?” he repeats. B.J. is already rooting through the makeup that Margaret’s got out on her vanity, and, in his drunken state, he keeps accidentally dropping various lipsticks and containers of blush to the ground. Margaret sort of swats at his hands in a half-hearted attempt to get him to stop messing with her things. Still looking at Hawkeye, she sighs and says, “Oh, fine.” But then she immediately snaps, “But _don’t_ mess anything up or I will personally break the still.”

“Oh, Margaret, I would never. You would never,” Hawkeye says, then goes over to Margaret’s closet and begins to look through her dresses. Even in his inebriated state, he recognizes that this is _not_ a level of trust that Margaret normally displays. She’s been a little more open, lately, and Hawkeye doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol or the hard day in surgery or the rain or _what_ that’s causing her to let her guard down even more tonight. Still, he’s glad for it.

As ridiculous as playing dress up with Margaret is, he could use a night of pretending they’ve got a use for clothes that weren’t army-issued, that they’ve got places to be, plays to stage. The part of Hawkeye that used to play make-believe never truly left him, it just mutated into a love for stories of all kinds: novels, poems, plays. He wants to play at make-believe with his friends tonight, to tell each other a happier story than what reality’s given them. And maybe Margaret knows he needs that; maybe even she needs that a little bit, too. Whatever her reason for going along with Hawkeye and B.J. right now, he’s grateful for it.

As he looks through her dresses, Margaret collapses onto the bed, and B.J. sits down in her chair. “Now hold—“ B.J. starts, breaking off into a fit of giggles before he continues, “Now hold very still.” Having finally selected a shade of lipstick, he waits patiently for Margaret to let him put it on her.

“Oh, you’re going to make me look _absolutely ridiculous_ ,” Margaret says. “You have _no_ idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“I’m a surgeon’s hands and an artist’s eye,” B.J. laughs. “Wait, no. _I’ve_ a surgeon’s hands and an artist’s eye. Plus, I’ve got this to steady my nerves.” Hawkeye turns around and sees B.J. pulling out a mostly-full bottle that he must’ve somehow managed to swipe from the bar as Igor was throwing them out. As B.J. takes a swig, then uncaps the lipstick, Hawkeye turns back to the closet. 

He soon gets distracted from the task at hand, though. Instead of finding a dress for Margaret, he pulls out a rather fabulous scarf of hers, draping it around his shoulders as though it were a feather boa. As he does this, he whirls around dramatically, only to burst out laughing when he sees what B.J.’s done to Margaret’s face. “You look—“ he begins, but when both Margaret and B.J. give him stern glances, he immediately adopts a somber expression and says, “You look quite lovely, Margaret.”

“Oh, let me see,” she says, and goes over to her mirror, at which point she shrieks. It’s not quite clown make-up, per say, but it’s close, although Hawkeye honestly can’t tell if B.J. did it on purpose or not. It looks like he’s managed to drain half the bottle in between botching the makeup job, although Margaret may have helped. Margaret wipes the makeup off, then goes over to the chair where B.J.’s sitting and puts him in a headlock before he can react. “You jerk!” she says.

“If you’re quite done terrorizing the makeup artist,” Hawkeye says, “I’d like to do my big number.”

“Oh really?” B.J. says, and Margaret releases him. She goes back over to sit on the bed, while B.J. stretches out in the chair. “And what number might that be?”

Hawkeye, instead of opting for another song from _Singin’ in the Rain_ , pivots instead to an Astaire number, breaking out into “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails” from Astaire’s 1935 film. This choice allows Hawkeye to engage in some more comically-bad “tap-dancing,” and the contrast of his awkward movements with the suave ones of Astaire in the original get B.J. and Margaret laughing and cheering all at once. Hawkeye doesn’t want to admit to himself just how much he likes performing for this audience of two. Somehow, the more over the top he goes, the more sincere it feels. He’s not really parodying just Astaire, he’s parodying his own need to perform. Implicit in his performance is the admission, _I know I’m over the top_ , and the question, _Do you love me anyway?_ The way they’re grinning back at him, he knows the answer is yes.

Before long, they realize it’s nearing three in the morning. “I really do need to get to bed,” Margaret says reluctantly.

“We wouldn’t want you to miss out on your beauty sleep,” Hawkeye tells her. “Heavens knows you need it after what B.J. did to your face earlier this evening.”

“Don’t insult my work,” B.J. says. “I’m a sensitive artist type. I’m liable to cry.” He pulls a mock-sad face, frowning at Hawkeye. Hawkeye ignores it, standing up and pulling on B.J.’s arm, trying to get him out the door. B.J. refuses to budge from the chair.

“Look at that, you’ve devastated him,” Margaret tells Hawkeye. “Poor man.”

“Oh, somehow I’ll live,” B.J. says, finally allowing Hawkeye to haul him out of the chair. Hawkeye can feel B.J. really leaning into him, so that Hawkeye is half-supporting his weight. _Must really be feeling the effects of the drinking tonight_ , Hawkeye thinks.

“Well,” Hawkeye says. “I guess this is goodnight.”

“Well, really,” B.J. says, giving first Hawk then Margaret a mischievous glance, “it’s good morning.”

“Oh, _please_ don’t make me sing another song,” Margaret says. “That was fun while it lasted, but a woman’s got to keep _some_ of her dignity.”

B.J. gives Margaret a pleading look. “But it’ll be so fun,” he says. Then he begins to sing, “ _Good mornin', good morning._ '”

Hawkeye chimes in, “ _We've talked the whole night through._ ” Then they both turn and look at Margaret expectantly.

After a minute, she sighs and sings, “ _Good mornin', good mornin' to you._ ”

“Yay!” B.J. cheers. He untangles himself from Hawkeye, and they both reach out their arms, helping to haul Margaret off the bed, so they can try and all dance arm in arm in her little tent. As the song continues, Margaret begins to sing with as much enthusiasm as Hawkeye and B.J. Doing his best to remember and imitate the movie choreography, Hawkeye kneels, having Margaret perch on his lap as B.J. sings Cosmo’s line, “ _When the band began to play / The stars were shining bright._ ”

Then Margaret switches over to B.J.’s knee as Hawkeye takes his turn singing, “ _Now the milkman's on his way / It's too late to say, ‘Good night.’_ ”

Of course, unlike Don, Cosmo, and Kathy, the trio tonight doesn’t have a full mansion to dance around in. They soon find themselves climbing all over Margaret’s furniture in an attempt to capture the energy of the number from the movie, until they finally give up and collapse onto her bed. For a minute, they just sit there laughing, each of them a bit in disbelief. “I’m going to regret having let you stand on top of my vanity in the morning, aren’t I,” Margaret says.

“With any luck, maybe you won’t remember that it happened,” Hawkeye tells her.

After he says this, she gives his shoulder a shove and tells him, “Okay, you two really better get out of here now, before the _actual_ morning rolls around and other people start getting up. I don’t want anyone gossiping about who they saw leaving my tent.”

“Fine, fine, we’re going,” Hawkeye says, untangling himself from the bed and once again hauling B.J. to his feet. “Come on, Beej. Night, Margaret,” he says, right before they make their way out into the rain.

“Good morning,” she replies, grinning at him.

It’s not a long walk back to their tent, and when they arrive, they find Charles fast asleep. Hawkeye expects that he and B.J. will each collapse into their separate beds, but B.J. turns to Hawkeye, who is still half-supporting him, and says, “You know, there’s still some songs from _Singin’ in the Rain_ that we haven’t done yet.”

“I don’t think we’re going to succeed in enlisting the nurses for a rendition of ‘Beautiful Girls’ at three am,” Hawkeye replies.

“No, but there’s always the love songs,” B.J. says. “Those only require two people. And there’s two people right here.”

“And Charles, asleep right next to us. I don’t think he’d much appreciate hearing our interpretation of ‘You Were Meant for Me’ right now.”

“There’s always, ‘Would You?’” B.J. says. “That one’s real quiet.” He’s giving Hawkeye some kind of look that Hawkeye can’t quite make out the meaning of.

“Come on, Beej, save it for the morning.”

“I want to sing it now,” B.J. says. “Come on, Hawk. It’s just a song. What’s the matter?”

 _What’s the matter_ , Hawkeye thinks. _What’s the matter is that I’ve been in love with you for well over a year now, and here we are standing so close together, and if you start singing me a love song I think might head just might explode._

Before he can think up a more composed reply, though, B.J. starts singing to him, all softly, like he’s serious for the first time all night about the words coming out of his mouth. “ _He holds her in his arms / Would you? Would you?_ ” There’s a pause as the lyrics hang in the air like a genuine question. Hawkeye can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and with B.J. standing so close to him, he’s afraid B.J. can feel it too. “Come on, Hawk,” B.J. says. He repositions himself, grabbing one of Hawkeye’s hands, then putting his other hand on Hawkeye’s waist. As if they’re about to dance properly now. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers here in a tent in Korea. Hawkeye, too stunned to really move, feels B.J. start to lead him slowly around the room. 

And he can’t help himself. He leans into. He rests his head against B.J.’s chest and sings, softly, “ _He tells her of her charms / Would you? Would you?_ ”

Still dancing, B.J sings back, “ _They met as you and I / And they were only friends / But before the story ends / He'll kiss her with a sigh / Would you? Would you?_ ”

Hawkeye’s afraid to keep singing, but he’s also afraid to stop, afraid that B.J. might read something even more serious in his silence, so he sings back, almost inaudibly, “ _And if the girl were I / Would you? Would you?_ ”

B.J. replies, “ _And would you dare to say / We were the same as they? / I would. Would you?_ ”

Suddenly, it’s all too much. Hawkeye can’t make himself sing the final refrain, the last, “I would.” Hawkeye lives in songs and stories, but this one is starting to feel too real. He knows B.J.’s just drunk, that he’s just continuing the joke that’s been running all night, acting out a song and dance like they do in the movies, but suddenly it hurts too much to play along. “Come on, Beej,” Hawkeye says, and he stops dancing. “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

“We’re not done singing yet,” B.J. insists.

“There’s lots of other songs we haven’t done yet, either,” Hawkeye says, pushing B.J. away from him. “There’s ‘Make ‘Em Laugh.’”

B.J.’s expression suddenly goes hard, and he takes an extra step away from Hawkeye. “Somehow, I don’t feel like laughing right now,” he says.

Hawkeye feels something seize up in his chest. A whole night as lovely as this, and he’s somehow ruined it. Does the joke really matter that much to B.J.? Is he such a stickler for getting all the way to the end of a performance? Or is it—does it—did the song mean more to B.J., too? As much as it meant to Hawk?

Hawkeye’s mind is racing, but even as it provides him with this tantalizing possibility, he shoves the thought aside. To think that, and then to be wrong—he can’t, he couldn’t. He can’t try. He can’t ask the question in earnest, say it outside of the way someone else wrote it. He’s not ready. Not yet.

So he does perhaps the stupidest thing possible, and keeps pushing bullheadedly along with his “Make ‘Em Laugh” bit. He borrows Cosmo’s line from the movie. “Come on now, snap out of it,” he tells B.J. “You can’t let a little thing like this get you down.”

B.J. smiles at him kind of sadly, then, but then he parrots back another of Cosmo’s lines. “I’m an actor, and the show must go on.”

“There you go,” Hawkeye says. He mimes playing a piano and sings, “ _Short people have long faces / And big people have short faces / Big people have little humor / And little people have no humor at all._ ” He knows the shift in mood is insane even as he does it, but he can’t stop himself. He feels like a spectator watching a car crash in slow motion, even as he knows he’s the one driving the car.

“Come on, Hawk, let’s just go to bed,” B.J. says, suddenly looking more sober than he has all night.

In some desperate act of wanting to salvage the night, of not wanting it to end on the sour note, Hawkeye says, “No, come on, one more song before we close down for the night. Come on.” He starts singing, “ _Make 'em laugh / Make 'em laugh / Don't you know everyone wants to laugh? / My dad said "Be an actor, my son, but be a comical one._ " He starts doing some of the absurd dance that Cosmo does in the movie, and B.J. sort of rolls his eyes, but he no longer looks so upset. If anything, he just looks entirely thrown for a loop, which Hawkeye figures is better than nothing.

At this point, Hawkeye and B.J. have stopped whispering, and Charles wakes up, sitting up just slightly to say, “Will you two _please_ be quiet?”

Hawkeye goes over to Charles’s bed and continues singing, “ _You can study Shakespeare and be quite elite / You could charm the critics and have nothing to eat. / Just slip on a banana peel, the world's at you feet / Make 'em laugh / Make 'em laugh / Make 'em laugh._ ”

As he’s singing, Hawkeye keeps getting more and more absurd with his dancing. he figures that if he’s trapped himself in this sort of absurd hellscape of a joke, he may as well take it all the way. The drunker he acts right now, the easier it will be for him to write all of this off in the morning. And it’s not all acting; he really is quite drunk. So drunk, in fact, that he fully commits to the bit and runs at the wall of the tent, forgetting that it’s just made of mesh, that he will not be able to even attempt to run up as Cosmo does. Instead, he finds himself ripping through it and toppling over at such an angle onto his arm that he instantly knows it’s broken.

“Shit, Hawkeye,” B.J. says as soon as this happens, running out into the rain and kneeling down next to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Hawkeye says. “It’s just, I think that my arm is broken.” All at once, he starts laughing. The absolute absurdity of the situation just overwhelms him. It’s not even the pain, really. It’s the fact that B.J. was dancing with him just a moment ago, and the tension of it was so much for Hawk to handle that he _threw himself out the wall of his tent._ There’s really nothing left for him to feel except completely, overwhelmingly hysterical.

“Um, Charles, I think he’s in shock,” B.J. says. “And I’m drunk. Could you please come help me get him in for some x rays?”

“ _Now_?” Charles says. “At _three in the morning_? How about we all just go to bed and see how he feels in the morning.”

“ _Now, Charles_ ,” B.J. hisses in such a tone that Charles seems to wake up fully and actually gets up to help.

B.J. and Charles get Hawkeye out of the rain and x-rayed, confirming that his arm is, in fact, broken. “You two do realize that this time you’ve taken your drunken exploits too far,” Charles says as he’s forming a cast onto Hawkeye’s arm. They’ve got him sitting on table, and B.J. is standing right next to him, looking on anxiously. “I may be the superior surgeon, but I can’t stitch up every man that comes through this door myself. I really wish you were better at taking care of yourself, Pierce.”

“If you keep talking, Charles,” B.J. says, “I will stitch your _lips shut_.”

“Fine, fine,” Charles says, sounding almost apologetic, but then he just adds, in a clipped tone, “I’m sure Colonel Potter will give you both a piece of his mind in the morning. I’ll have to content myself with waiting for that.” He finishes up with Hawkeye’s arm but doesn’t move, hovering anxiously over Hawkeye despite having just expressed his displeasure with him.

“We’ll be fine now, thank you, Charles,” B.J. says in that sickly-sweet voice of his that means he’s madder than all hell.

“Right,” Charles says, telling B.J., “I trust you can keep him out of any more trouble for the night.” Then he makes his way back across the compound.

B.J. waits until Charles is good and out of sight before he says, his voice suddenly very soft, “Come on, Hawkeye. Let’s get you to bed.”

“He’s right, you know,” Hawkeye says. “I’ve sort of fucked everything up not just for myself but everyone else.”

“You didn’t fuck everything up,” B.J. says. “It’ll heal.”

“I’m going to be useless now,” Hawkeye says, and to his horror, he feels actually tears welling up in his eyes. Unable to contain them, he lets them fall. He can’t help thinking back, immediately, to when he lost his vision, how anxious he was, how helpless. For the longest minute of his life, B.J. doesn’t say or do anything, and Hawkeye’s terrified that B.J.’s going to tell him this is his fault, that he doesn’t feel sorry for him. He’s terrified that B.J.’s going to walk away.

But he doesn’t. After a minute, B.J. reaches out, very hesitantly, almost as if asking if it’s alright after everything that happened earlier that night, and puts his arms around Hawkeye. Hawkeye doesn’t say anything, but he lets himself lean into the other man, head on his shoulder, almost like when they were dancing. They stay there for a long time, neither of them saying a word. After a minute, Hawkeye pulls back and looks B.J. in the eye.

He can’t let this all be for nothing. There are whole weeks ahead of him where he’ll be unable to operate, where the whole camp will be inconvenienced because he was too scared to tell B.J. the truth. Before he has any more time to think, Hawkeye says, “Hey, Beej?”

“Yeah?” B.J. replies.

“I would,” he says. He waits, breathless, for a reply.

“Do you mean—“ B.J. starts.

“I mean I would,” Hawkeye says again. “I mean, I would, and not just in the song. I would.” He pauses. “Would you?”

Instead of replying, B.J. leans forward and kisses him. Really kisses him. Hands in his hair, then on his chest, under his shirt. Hawkeye leans into it, unable to believe it’s really happening. He reaches out with his good hand and grabs ahold of B.J.’s shirt, just to prove to himself that it’s not a dream. He holds on for dear life, and he kisses B.J. back as though he might never get the chance again.

They only stop when B.J. accidentally knocks Hawkeye’s newly bandaged arm. Hawkeye winces, pulling away on instinct. As soon as he does, B.J. leaps back, looking down at Hawkeye’s arm. “Oh, no, did I—“

“I’m fine,” Hawkeye says. “No, actually,” he says, laughing. “I’d say I’m more than fine. I feel absolutely fit as a fiddle.”

“You asshole,” B.J. says. “We kiss for the first time and _that’s_ what you have to say about it? _That’s_ the song you want to bring into all this?”

“Well, I think Don and Cosmo were really the love story of that movie,” Hawkeye says, grinning, “but they didn’t get a proper love song, so I guess we’ll have to take what we can get.”

“You are just _unbelievable_ ,” B.J. says.

“So you enjoyed the kiss, then?” Hawkeye says, willfully misinterpreting what B.J. meant.

B.J. is more than happy to go along with it, though. He grins back and says, “Yes. To put it lightly, I’d say I enjoyed the kiss.”

***

They don’t tell Potter all this, of course. By the time morning rolls around and they’re summoned to his office, they’ve reworked the whole story into a joke with the broken arm as the punch line. The kiss that came after it remains a coda known only to them. They’ll tell it in time, of course, to friends like Margaret, and ones they make back in the states. Eventually, they’ll stand up with champagne and finish each other’s sentences, recounting to friends and family how and, “I would” eventually became an, “I do.” But a wedding is a ways down the road. For now, they’re the only two people that know the story of the kiss, but for now, that’s more than enough for them.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be ~500 words & I wrote it in one day, so please excuse any grammatical errors. Thanks for reading and kudos & comments are appreciated ❤💕


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